Thread: JR 149s
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Howard Stone Howard Stone is offline
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Default JR 149s

On Thursday, 6 June 2019 13:34:12 UTC+1, Peter Wieck wrote:
Howard:

In the interest of full disclosure, I have NOT heard that speaker specifically. But, and commenting on the nature of small speakers:

a) Its rating is +/- 3 dB, 70hz - 20 Khz. While respectable, this will not fill even a moderate sized room. Keep in mind that the woofer is less than 4.5 inches (110mm). In a more ideal world, that is a lower-midrange, not a woof.
b) The amp at ~100 wpc or so, will not be to blame. Those are relatively efficient at 89 dB @ 1 meter @ 1 watt.

The smallest speaker I have that is capable of making good noise is the AR4x, with an 8" woofer. They do just OK in the smallest room in the house (14 x 11 x 9 (feet)) driven by a 60-watt vintage AR amp. The speakers you have are the functional equivalent of the satellites on my AR Athena Sub-sat system.

I will bet that these started life, conceptually, as monitor speakers, not as full system speakers, and their limitations are due to that start.

Now, in a room approximating your 15x15, I am running a pair of AR3a speakers from an vintage AR Receiver (80 watts into 4 ohms). That is a 12" woofer, dome mid and tweet. Do fine. And that is what you need to move sufficient air to fill such a room.

The library - main listening area - gets the Maggies and a brute-force amp to handle them. The best way to fly, in my opinion.

Peter Wieck
Melrose Park, PA


I'm afraid that you too are right Mr Wieck. Such a shame again!